Vulcan's Kittens (Children of Myth Book 1) (10 page)

Heff and Quetzalcoatl, watching from the palace, laughed.

“My garden may never be the same,” the winged serpent said with a chuckle.

“It’s worth it,” the elder immortal replied. “The very human gift of laughter and play may save us yet.”

“Yesss, the gift of curiosssity...” His hiss only showed up when he was stressed.

“The Old Ones never had it,” Heff stated flatly. “I was born on this plane, yes, but I was partly raised in Olympus. They don’t care. They don’t like change, and they hate that humans are becoming a threat.”

“So what are we doing?” rejoined the other, as if they hadn’t been in council about this for weeks now.

“Fighting a delaying action. Waiting for a breakthrough that can stop the Old Ones. Looking for a way to kill an immortal.”

Quetzalcoatl looked straight into Hephaestus’ eyes. “You never said that in council.”

“No,” Heff replied bluntly. “You knew it, though.”

The serpent nodded sinuously. “I guessed when you took the Scholar to Sanctuary. And the Old Ones must suspect, as well, or they would not have sent minions to destroy her home. It was the opening salvo in this war.”

Heff looked grim. “In the past we did not target our own kind. This time, there will be no holds barred.”

Quetzalcoatl tsk-ed at the other immortal. “You speak so much human slang.”

Heff stiffened, looking off into the distance. He remained silent and the serpent saw him visibly pale.

“What is wrong?”

“The wards around my home have been breached.”

“Go, then!”

There was a long hesitation, the god’s shoulders tensed, his muscles rolling in a massive display of his strength, and then Heff’s body slumped. “No, there is nothing I can do. It will take me too long to get there to be any good. I will send Sekhmet and Steve.”

Quetzalcoatl lifted a wing and brushed his friend’s arm with it. “I know it is hard. We need you here, though. You hold them together.”

Heff’s face looked as if it were cast in iron. “The general stays with his army. Even when his family is in danger. We need to gather all the children at the Sanctuary on Earth.”

“All?” The serpent was startled.

“If they come after one, they will hunt them all. It is our weakest point.”

The children of the gods, slow to mature into their Power, protected by gods and demi-gods all over the world, were the future. Raised as humans among humans, they were intended to balance immortals and humans. Humans, after all, had sprung from immortals. Heff believed that with time, they would become intertwined and equal. He would live to see that, he had reason to believe, and he thought he would enjoy it.

The Old Ones liked their power, and would do anything to retain it. They might draw from the adulation of humans to feed their immense egos, but to them, humans were pawns in their ongoing battle for world domination. The children of the gods were none of theirs these days, as they had for centuries withdrawn to the citadel of Olympus.

Their withdrawal might be why humans had finally come into their birthright of joy and curiosity. Heff knew he and others who fostered human kind had also kick-started the renaissance of humanity. But it was the innate intelligence of the true children of the gods, humanity itself, sprung from the blood of the Titans, the first to slip through the cracks in the planes and come to Earth...

Heff tore himself from his wandering thoughts, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He looked into the concerned rainbow-shot eyes of his friend and squared his shoulders. “I believe we have another planning committee to ride herd on.”

He sent a sprite to summon Steve and Sekhmet to him. They met him at the entrance to the war chamber. He looked Sekhmet in the eyes and saw her fur lift along her entire spine.

“My wards were breached. Go quickly, and when you have determined the situation, all the children must be taken to Sanctuary below.”

“All the children?”

“If they will attack ours, they will attack others who have not so doughty a protector.”

Steve nodded grimly. “We run on the winds. Send sprites with us, that we may report back.”

Heff sighed. “Thank you...”

Sekhmet licked his cheek and then they both turned and raced away, their long bodies almost touching the ground with each stride.

Heff went into the room filled with a long conference table and immortals of every shape and description. It was utter chaos. All of them were talking at once. He shut the worry out of his mind and took control of the meeting.

Chapter 15

Linn could feel the rhythm of the galloping horse, but couldn’t see where she was going any more, she was crying too hard. She wiped at her face angrily with her sleeve. It wouldn’t help Blackie and Spot One for them to fall into a ravine or something. She did wish that she knew where they were headed, though. She was hoping Bes had guided the horse with his power, or something.

They had ridden out of the valley and the mare slowed and turned to climb up the low ridge that separated this valley from the next. Linn let her take the lead. She could sit up in the saddle now and take stock. She ached all over. Blackie and Spot One were both curled in the panniers, sound asleep. That had to be Bes’s doing.

But the house had been blown apart, by whatever those things had been. With two of her kittens inside. The tears started to flow again and she rubbed them away. Bes was still back there, outnumbered. She couldn’t go back... the kittens were her first priority. It had only been maybe a half hour since he’d sent her to safety, but running the horse any farther would have been insanity.

She rubbed the mare’s sweaty neck. The golden horse flipped an ear back at her, then focused on the trail ahead. Linn looked around. There was a trail, a faint one, through the sparse trees of the high forest they were making their way through. She didn’t know where they were going, but the mare did. Linn was going to trust that, for now.

She looked up at the sky. The sun was still high. They could travel for another couple of hours, then she would need to set up camp. Which meant by then they needed to get down the other side of this ridge and find water. She wasn’t going to urge the horse to go any faster, though. Only in movies and on TV did you make your horses run for hours. In real life, that would leave you on foot with a dead horse.

She took stock of what they had. One fourteen year-old girl, who knew probably just enough bushcraft to get them all in trouble, one enchanted horse (she hoped), two comatose kittens, the blanket roll on the back of the saddle, her belt kit, and Lambent, a magical sword. Her survival pack was back in the barn. There hadn’t been time to get it.

The sky was clear and it didn’t rain here often in the summer. That was a plus. Downside, it was going to get cool tonight. The mare was climbing higher into the mountains, and Linn started to look for signs of water. There was a waterskin strapped to the saddle, under her leg, she discovered. Bes had saddled with the intention of them riding quite a while, she guessed.

No milk for the kittens, no food for her beyond the protein bar in her belt kit. No rifle. Lambent was a sword. Useless out here, except for chopping kindling. She was going to have to figure out how to catch some rabbits. She was twisting around in the saddle looking at everything when the mare shifted tacks.

Linn grabbed at the saddle horn and looked ahead. They were headed down into a narrow valley now, and.... she squinted. That looked like a stream ahead. She was going to drink out of it, giardia or no. She’d read there were some high mountain streams that weren’t infected with it. Not that she had a choice, because the water treatment system was in her survival kit.

The mare picked up speed as they neared the little rocky stream, and then stopped at the verge of it to lower her head and drink deeply. Linn slowly slipped out of the saddle, gasping as she hit the ground. She was sore in places she didn’t think she’d had before today.

Linn stood by the drinking horse for a moment, letting the blood return to her legs. She rubbed her butt. It was numb. She lifted the waterskin off the saddle and knelt to fill it at the clear stream. Behind her, Blackie poked his head up out of the saddlebag and looked around, his ears flattened to his head. He wasn’t happy.

Linn heard his miaow and went to him. She took him water in her cupped hands, which he lapped gratefully. He didn’t seem willing to leave the cozy saddlebag, so she went round to the other and patted Spot One until he woke up, too. He lifted his head up and look around, then stretched out a paw to bat at her loosened hair. Linn kissed his nose and went to get him water as well.

The kittens cared for, she stood for a moment to take stock of her surroundings. She was lost, she knew that. She’d been in too much of a panic to take a compass sighting when they left, so she pulled it out now and looked around. No real visible landmarks. The stream ran to the west and a little to the south. If she followed it down, she would probably reach civilization.

Linn thought about that for a moment. Even if she did get to a town, with people, what would happen? Her grandfather was missing, and who knew what had happened to Bes? Her mother was trying to keep the world from blowing up. Her grandmother was too far away. Linn pulled out her phone. No service, which is what she’d thought. She turned it off to save the battery and slipped it back into her shirt pocket, buttoning it carefully. She might need it later.

For now, she would stay with the mare’s trail. She did seem to be going somewhere, and Linn knew horses tended to go home, left to themselves. Perhaps, then, the mare would take them to Coyote. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet him. The legends she’d read were wild. But he would know how to get her to her grandfather, and he was Bes’s friend.

She looked at the mare, which was ready to go again, and decide she’d walk for a while. Holding the reins, she let the horse have her head, and they set off again, following the stream. Linn limped a little until her muscles loosened up. When they came to a shallow place the mare wanted to ford, she remounted. She wanted to stay near water, but it wasn’t time to stop yet. She didn’t know how far it was to Coyote’s, but Bes had gotten there and back in an afternoon with the truck.

Back in the saddle, Linn relaxed a little and felt how tired she was. Her bones ached. Everything hurt. The horse was headed uphill again...on a winding, easy way, but discernibly up to the top of the ridge. What lay behind that was anybody’s guess. Blackie pulled himself out of the saddlebag and, much to her dismay, made his way delicately into her lap. There he sat tall, looking in every direction.

“This is a high forest,” Linn told him, her voice hoarse from crying and not having spoken for a while. “The trees are spaced pretty far apart because it’s cold, and there’s not a lot of rainfall.”

The kitten flicked an ear back in her direction. Linn knew he was listening, but wasn’t sure how much he understood.

“I love the smell,” she told him, sniffing deeply. The forest smelled spicy, pungent with the resin of the spruce and fir trees they rode under. The kitten opened his mouth and she knew he was using the Jacobsen’s organ that allowed cats to smell very acutely, almost tasting the air.

Linn ruffled his ears. “No fair. I can’t smell as much as you.”

Blackie leaned against her chest and purred briefly, slitting his eyes. She sighed. She was the one who should be comforting him, and instead he was helping her. She’d lost his siblings... She wiped her eyes and promised herself that she would always carry a handkerchief from now on. Her sleeve was disgusting.

“It’s starting to get late. As soon as we get to the bottom of the next valley we’ll stop for the night. I’m afraid there won’t be any milk.”

Blackie was back to sitting upright, Linn could see his claws sinking into the leather of the saddle, as the mare scrambled up a slope to the ridgeline. She put her arms around him and held onto the saddlehorn and the kitten. He headbutted her jaw affectionately.

Linn turned in the saddle to look at Spot One, who was watching the world go by alertly from his bag. He mewed at her, a raspy sound. She looked down into the valley. “One more slope, and then we stop. It’s not going to be comfortable, but I’ll keep you safe.” Linn wished she felt as confident as she sounded. She was exhausted, and had no illusions about being able to use Lambent against an attacker, much less three of them. But she’d try. She squared her shoulders and sent the mare down the slope, letting the tired beast pick her way slowly.

The bottom of the valley held a tiny intermittent stream that held a few puddles of water, enough for the mare to get another good drink. Linn decided that she’d boil the water if she used any here. She unsaddled the horse, which immediately found a dry, flat area, rolling luxuriously in the pine needle carpet. The kittens sat near the saddle, warily watching the big creature flop around.

Linn unrolled the bundle that had been tied behind the saddle. An eight-foot oilskin tarp, a ground cloth, and a down sleeping bag were revealed, along with enough rope to set up a small shelter. Linn drew Lambent and went looking for a good spot. She used the leaf-bladed sword to cut a slender sapling for a ridgepole, wincing as the merry dancing flickers of power bit deeply into the wood. It seemed wrong, somehow, to use her sword for this.